Musings of an Incorrigible Writer

Wisdom

01/01/2015

I look back on 2014 as the Year of the Zombie. Me, being the Zombie. With almost constant and chronic pain, I too cringed at first when I saw the self-generated "It's been a great year," facebook header, but then when I reviewed my photos I was reminded, that truth be told, it was a great year. If I only focused on one aspect of me, my physical self, I could have wallowed in self-pity and would have missed out on all the other wonderful aspects of my life. Family. Friends. Pups. Laughter. Love. Sunsets. Books. Food. Travel.

My life is pretty good when I focus on what I have, rather on what I don't have. As I look forward to 2015, and shed the Year of Zombie for good, I claim this new year as the Year of the Warrior Goddess. Stronger. Healthier. More balanced. And in harmony with my life. After all, Zombies are so last year, don't ya know?

07/18/2014

After a year of chronic (almost constant) pain in every part of my body I've diagnosed myself with fibromyalgia because all the symptoms fit, and I've had every blood test known to man to rule out everything else. Plus I've had enough flareups this year to know what a flareup is vs when I'm able to manage my symptoms with sleep, exercise, proper nutrition, supplements, acupuncture, myofascial massage therapy, chiropractic adjustments, trigger point therapy, epidurals, pain relievers, muscle relaxants, Imitrex, meditation, prayer, napping, laughing, crying, cursing, reading, sun therapy, Reality TV therapy, Carvel Mint Dashers, and whatever else raises my spirit in the moment and/or relieves stress and takes my mind off of pain.

But don't get me wrong, on my good days, I'm still stiff and achy, and experiencing pain in at least one part of my body.

07/08/2014

According to a recent article on Huffington Post by Emma Jenner, an experienced nanny, many parents make the same five mistakes that she thinks is leading to a crisis of sorts. Our kids are becoming bored, entitled, spoiled, selfish, and rude. And she thinks it's because we are not delaying gratification and instead trying to give them everything they want.

Remember when we were kids? We'd never dare use the words "I'm bored." Because if we did we knew we'd get an earful. Our parents would tell us to go clean the garage, or rake leaves, or straighten out our messy rooms if we were so bored. Then they'd tell us they'd "give us something to be bored about."

And also, I remember rarely being bored. We knew how to spend and appreciate lazy days, and we also knew how to get things done when so motivated. It wasn't our parents full-time jobs to entertain us, soothe us, or keep us occupied or "unbored". We took that task on ourselves. And we did it without the ability to text our friends. Instead, we'd wander around the neighborhood and knock on doors and see who was around and up for a game of freeze tag or running bases. Our parents didn't arrange constant playdates or shuttle us to multiple camps/programs/classes/lessons. We made our own plans. We were movers and shakers in this way.

If we wanted to see a movie, we didn't instantly download it onto our phones. We had to first find the funds (by looking under couch cushions or counting up our paper route money) and then we'd walk a mile to the nearest movie theater. Our parents rarely dropped everything for us. It just wasn't the way things worked back in a day. They weren't our full-time drivers. We walked or biked most places. If we wanted something bad enough, we figured out a way to make it happen. This made us responsible for our own happiness. We didn't insist or demand things from our parents. And if we did? Well, we know how that turned out. Our parents laughed when we held our breaths or threatened tantrums. "Go ahead," they'd smirk. They had the power (and patience and wisdom) to tune us out.

We didn't realize it at the time (and maybe they didn't either) but they were teaching us delayed gratification. They were showing us we weren't the centers of their universe or anybody's universe. And they were motivating us to solve our own problems instead of having everything done for us.

The attached article about parenting mistakes does touch on a lot of ways in which we are overparenting and overprotecting and over-managing our kids lives in ways that I do feel is somewhat detrimental. Now that I am on the other end of things, and my kids are almost fully baked, I can see clearly that making the tough decisions early on, when they were irrational and demanding toddlers, may have seemed hard at the time, but was well worth it. Some of these lessons we learned the very, very, very hard way. What nobody tells you (sometimes until it is too late) is that it much easier to correct a toddler's bad behavior than it is a teenager's, especially when a behavior has been rewarded and enabled for years without being challenged. These bad behaviors can begin to rule a family and become the primary dynamic.

There were many times I could have taken the path of least resistance or caved under pressure, or surrendered all my power to my kids, but with the help of my husband (who generally remained strong) and the advice of a therapist, I learned skills to parent without becoming my children's servant. I learned I wasn't a bad parent because I set limits and boundaries and allowed my children to be bored. I also found out it was okay to say NO, even when it broke my heart to see my children's tears or to hear I was the "worst mother in the world."

Of course, I can say this because now, many of those battles are behind me, and I am no longer in the thick of it. My kids are lovely teenagers. But I look around and know I am lucky because unlike many parents who seem to have thrown up their hands in defeat, I CHERISH MY TIME WITH MY ALMOST GROWN CHILDREN. Not that it's always been easy. We've waged many battle of wills during the Teenage Rebellion, just as we did during the Toddler Wars. But unlike most bloody wars where one side is vanguished, we have all come out winners.

I can happily say my children are not bored, spoiled, entitled, demanding, selfish or rude.

Can I take total credit for that? Of course not. But I do agree with this author of this article:

"Expect more. Share your struggles. Give less. And let's straighten these children out, together, and prepare them for what they need to be successful in the real world and not the sheltered one we've made for them."

01/09/2014

In a recent open letter to his daughter, the great filmmaker Martin Scorsese spoke about the future of cinema. As you are getting ready to go to college and explore your own options over the next four years, I'd like to talk to you about your dreams and visions for your future, especially your creative visions, and let you know that it will be a tough road ahead.

The field you've chosen -- communications (tv, radio, film, journalism) is extremely competitive, especially for women. There are still limited opportunities for women to advance to the upper levels of these fields or be in positions to greenlight projects that speak to women. And thus even if you do advance, you're probably going to have to sacrifice your own creative visions for someone else's (i.e. the man). Working for 'the man' is always an option (and can be quit lucrative I hear), but please know there is no artistic freedom or true spiritual value in making art purely for cash. Paying the bills is one thing. Feeding your soul is another.

10/24/2013

"Do any human
beings ever realize life while they live it-- every, every minute?" (From Our Town by Thornton Wilder)

I turned 46 yesterday.

Where has all the time gone? Seems like yesterday I was graduating college (1990), getting married (1994), running around Philadelphia all night as part of an independent film shoot (1995), having babies (1996 & 1999), watching the Twin Towers fall (2001), adopting my dog (2001), moving into a new house (2005), burying my dog (2013), moving into another new house (2013)...and doing a heck of a lot of writing about the life I was leading in between it all.

Thank god for the writing (mostly blogging since 2003) because, to paraphrase Thornton Wilder, "writing helped me realize life while I was living it."